


Old Trees Just Grow Stronger

by Spot_On60



Category: The A-Team (2010), The A-Team (TV), The A-Team - All Media Types, Wuthering Heights - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27294340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spot_On60/pseuds/Spot_On60
Summary: The team has a frightful, literary excursion on the Yorkshire moors.(May be read as TV or 2010 A-Team, reader’s choice)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	Old Trees Just Grow Stronger

  
“Where the hell is this place? BA grumbled as he was now completely turned around.

“How did we end up here again?” Murdock was looking about, twisting in his seat to see behind them.

“What do you mean again?” Face asked.

“See that mound? That one right there. Looks like something straight out of an English gothic novel. The one with the single tree on top. This is the third time we’ve been by it.”

Karen Jacobsen’s soothing voice navigation had abandoned ship at least thirty miles before, leaving Face to try directing them to the home of their new clients via hastily written directions he now wished he’d paid closer attention to. Without a phone signal to call for assistance, Carfax Abbey had been eluding them for going on two hours. Richard Bancroft III had expressly warned Hannibal to watch the time. The last thing the team would want is to be lost on the moors at night. “Perilous” had been used by Bancroft to cement the point.

Best laid plans lost somewhere in the barely moonlit and desolate landscape, the team were now simply looking for any dwelling with a door they could knock on to ask directions. “Murdock’s right,” Hannibal confirmed. “We have been by here before.”

“What do you suggest?” BA was on the last bits of his store of patience.

“The road to the right ends. Last time we took a right. This time we take a left.”

After taking the turn at the T they travelled down a road with potholes and ruts plenty enough Face was calculating the cost of repairs to their rented vehicle. It seemed they had traveled several miles up and down along rises and falls and snaking around large outcroppings when Hannibal raised his hand. “There. See it?”

“Got it,” BA replied as he swung the wheel about onto a tract leading to a stone and brick structure in the not too far distance highlighted by a pair of trees.

Face had his door open as they came to a stop at the end of a stone path leading to the stone house. “I’ll see if they have a phone.”

Halfway up the hill Face saw a door swing open, depositing a gentleman who, moving at a clipped pace, headed down the path directly toward him. “Wouldn’t stay there if I were you. And I don’t mind you telling the beast on the other side of the door it was me who said it. You tell him it was Mr. Lockwood who said it.”

As Face watched the irate man stomp off, while the rest of the team wondered what Face saw in the moonlight. He had tripped in such a way it had appeared someone unseen had brushed by him, knocking him a bit off balance.

Reaching the top of the hill, Face made his way around the stone wall to the door Mr. Lockwood had exited. A weathered knocker announced his arrival. It was less than a minute before the door flung open, seeming to itself be angry at the disturbance. The appearance of the figure on the other side startled the former Lieutenant.

He was a tall and lean man wearing a collarless shirt, snug trousers and what looked to Face like knee high riding boots. “Oh. It’s you,” he growled sending a waft of sour beer breath Face’s way. “Come to collect, have you? Well you’ll have to wait until morning.” He stepped away from the door, sloshing the contents of the tankard he was holding.

Face noted the only light in the room was issued from an enormous, stone fireplace. “Umm, you may have mixed me up with someone else. I was hoping you could give me directions to Carfax Abbey. We’ve managed to get a little turned around.”

The man regarded him through what was obvious to Face to be an alcohol induced fog. “Take the second room.” Then shouted, “Joseph!” giving Face a bit of a start.

Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man, very old, perhaps, though hale and sinewy. “May ta good Lord hep ‘s!” he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure. “Coom.”

”Do you have a phone?” Face asked.

“Nay, nay. Ta’ be no mah serv’ce ta’neeght say maister Hin’lay. Thear nobbut t’ doag’s poruge un scraips.”

The old man shuffled from the entryway exposing a youth sat in a chair before the appropriately raging fire. Setting foot inside, Face could feel a weight of bitterness descend upon his shoulders, a heavy atmosphere inside the house surrounded in acrimonious anger.

He turned his attention to the child sitting in what passed for a parlor in this darkened den. “Is it possible for me to use your phone?”

Not more than five or six years of age, the boy rose and assessed him. With a watchful eye on Face he slowly made his way to the staircase that Joseph was still climbing on wretched old legs. The child didn’t project a wariness of this stranger in his home, but rather a disdain.

Left alone, a confused Face took a brief look about him, his KIM training quickly informing there was no landline in sight. He gave half a thought to calling out, but stifled the inclination. He didn’t particularly care to once again engage in conversation, if the abbreviated sentiments the drunken man expressed could even be categorized as conversation at all. Instead he returned the way he came.

Rounding the stone wall his attention returned back to the courtyard, to the sound of a woman’s voice, muffled but mournful just the same. His eyes immediately picked her up, a young woman studying him from the far end of the yard. His first impression was of her wearing a gown appropriate for the 19th, possibly even 18th century. He dismissed the thought replacing it with the woman must be in her nightgown. 

Moving back around the wall he lost sight of her. Upon reaching the bump out along the building’s far side, she was gone. Confronted with another door, he decided his best course of action would be to retreat, sometimes the better part of valor. He certainly would have had better luck approaching the young woman for assistance than the other inhabitants; however, he had no desire to push his luck with the other residents.

Making his way back down the stone path he heard shouted behind him, “My sister maybe at Thrushcross Grange, but you won’t be welcome there. Linton will have none of ya!”

Returning to the vehicle at the end of the path the other three were expectant as he climbed in.

“Well?” asked Hannibal.

“Well we’re just as screwed as we were before. It seems to be quite the dysfunctional little family up there. The guy who passed me on the steps warned me. Said I shouldn’t go up there. He wasn’t kidding.”

It was Murdock’s turn to quiz. “What guy?”

“There was someone coming down while I was headed up.”

“I didn’t see anybody. You guys see anyone?”

With both BA and Hannibal in agreement with the pilot, Face was incredulous. “He had to have come right by here. Nowhere else for him to go.”

“Let’s go BA.” Hannibal was tired and cranky. There hadn’t been anyone. He’d swear to it. Not by the Land Rover. Not on the steps. He was sure of it having watched Face’s ascent to the top of the hill.

Perhaps five miles along, again Hannibal put an end to the discussion of the mystery man being carried out in the backseat by pointing out something he spied in the nearly moonless night, “Up ahead. That looks more like it.”

Along the road stood a house, one decidedly grander than the other they had left. BA pulled up to a stone block consisting of steps on either side. “What do you suppose that is?”

“It’s a mounting block,” Hannibal informed releasing his belt. “It’s to get on a horse or to enter a carriage.” His popped open his door and threw over his shoulder, “Come on Face. Looks like there are some lights on somewhere in there.”

Hannibal spun the knob on the door engaging the bell on the other side. Settling back he took in the younger man beside him. He wondered if he hadn’t been pushing too hard. Face was always sturdy and strong both physically and mentally. He had to question his insistence of having seen a man none of the rest of them had.

“You okay, Kid?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“It’s just...” but Face wasn’t listening, not to him at least.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Hannibal asked, his own eyes following his Lieutenant’s into the distance, through a walkway in the garden wall, along a lawn to a small pond.

“Giggling. Do you hear her giggling?”

“Who?”

“Her. I saw her at the other house. She was in the courtyard there. She must have followed us.”

Hannibal was about to ask again if Face felt alright when he too caught a glimpse of a woman making haste along the far side of the pond. But it was then the door was answered and the night took another decidedly odd turn.

A woman with rosy cheeks and what could be considered mischievous blue eyes highlighting her pudgy face pulled open the door. She wore a loose linen blouse tucked into a blue cotton skirt that reached the floor which was in turn covered by a full length of white apron. It was all topped off by a mob cap of white linen and made special by the small ruffles around her face.

Hannibal flashed his most gracious of smiles. “Hello. We’re hoping you could help us find our way to Carfax Abbey. We seem to have lost our way.”

She gave no clue that she had heard what he’d said, much less that he was standing there at all. Her eyes instead were glued to Face.

“What!” she cried, uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor, and she raised her hands in amazement. “What! you come back? Is it really you? Is it?”

Face took a sidelong look to Hannibal whose own features were obviously perplexed.

“How will she take it?” she exclaimed. “What will she do? The surprise bewilders me—it will put her out of her head! And you are Heathcliff! But altered! Nay, there’s no comprehending it. Have you been for a soldier?”

“Guess I’ve got one of those faces. This is the second time tonight I’ve been confused for someone else. We really just need directions or possibly use your phone.”

“Where have you come from? Did you go to the Heights? Where shall you stay? I shall inform the lady of the house.” And she was gone.

Hannibal looked to Face. “Second time?”

Face shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. As one they remembered the woman by the pond. All was quiet in that direction.

“What’s with the costume?”

Hannibal opened his mouth to reply but was cut off when a second woman, again dressed in period clothing came to the door.

“Heathcliff...” The gentlemen didn’t know if they were welcome or not. “You’ve come back. Come in, come in.” Again it was as though Hannibal wasn’t present. “I shall announce you to Edgar. Please wait for me. Do,” she implored.

Before either of the men could interject she was gone. They soon heard the excited woman somewhere above.

“Oh, Edgar, Edgar! Oh, Edgar darling! Heathcliff’s come back—he is!”

“Well, well,” cried her apparent husband, crossly, “don’t strangle me for that! He never struck me as such a marvellous treasure. There is no need to be frantic!”

Beyond that the conversation continued with as much animation as the start though now in lowered tones. Then beyond the hushed tones they heard, “You bid him step up,” he said; “and, Catherine, try to be glad, without being absurd. The whole household need not witness the sight of your welcoming a runaway servant as a brother.”

Soon the first woman returned and bade them, or at least Face, to follow her. She ushered them up a set of stairs and into the presence of the master and mistress, whose flushed cheeks betraying signs of warm talk. But the lady’s glowed with another feeling when the men appeared at the door: she sprang forward, took both Face’s hands, and led him to the gentleman standing there; and then she seized the man’s reluctant fingers and crushed them into his.

“Edgar? I presume?”

Hannibal assessed the man as he had clearly been forgotten in this rather uncomfortable reunion with the wrong person. Standing six foot, the master was fair and strikingly handsome, beautiful even. His stance was bolt upright, no doubt partly the result of his dress. Like the women his was from a time long past. The frill of his linen shirt flounced from a brocade waistcoat and thigh skimming silk coat. The gentlemen’s silk stockings were topped by primitive knit britches and finished off by low heeled skimmers sporting bows across their vamps.

“Sit down, sir,” he said, at length. “Mrs. Linton, recalling old times, would have me give you a cordial reception; and, of course, I am gratified when anything occurs to please her.”

“And I also,” answered Face, or if you prefer, Heathcliff, “especially if it be anything in which I have a part. I shall stay an hour or two willingly.”

“An hour or two?!” Hannibal choked out.

“What?” Face looked confused. “An hour or two. No. Did I say an hour or two?”

“Yes. You did.” Eyebrows raised, Hannibal’s voice had the inflection of a teenage girl.

Face’s attention returned to the couple; one trying her best to make this impromptu visit an occasion, the other gritted his teeth feigning interest.

“Please, sit,” Mrs. Linton offered.

Face was halfway down into a chair before Hannibal grasped under his arm, hauling him back to his full height.

“As generous and welcoming as you have been, we really must be on our way,” Hannibal insisted. Face noted the boss’ childhood brogue had unexpectedly arrived.

After a jab to the ribs inflicted by his Colonel, Face came back to himself. “We really can’t stay, so if you’d please give us directions to Carfax Abbey or allow us to use your phone we’ll be on our way.”

“Surely you haven’t been gone such a time as to not recall the way to Wuthering Heights, our childhood home!” Mrs. Linton exclaimed. “Never mind. You shan’t yet take your leave. You’ve only just arrived.”

“Catherine. It is not for us to dictate other’s schedules. If Heathcliff has an appointment elsewhere...” Mr. Linton was in no way interested in impeding their guest’s departure. “Ellen!” he called accompanied by a table bell.

It was no surprise the servant immediately entered. Hannibal thought to himself if they had opened the door instead of calling, the woman would have tumbled in from the passageway having been listening at the door.

“Nelly,” Mrs. Linton began, “please escort Mr. Heathcliff. He must take his business to my brother Hindley at Wuthering Heights.” Not in any way cloaking the churlishness in her voice she sniped, “It would make him happy to spend his time there rather than in the comforts of our Thrushcross Grange.”

Hannibal and Face glanced at each other, quickly said goodnight and hightailed it after the servant. Unfortunately, Nelly had already moved ahead and was no longer in the immediately vicinity. The parlor door was shut behind them leaving them in darkness.

“This way,” Face heard the servant’s voice say to his left though he was certain they had come from the right when they originally entered.

“Hannibal,” he spoke into the dark receiving no reply.

“This way,” again but more insistent.

A door was open ahead beaming light into the hallway. Face made his way there, carefully looking around the corner. In the room lay a disheveled woman on an old style fainting couch. Her hair was in disarray, her cotton nightgown wrinkled and askew. Heavily pregnant her head lolled to a shoulder and managed to pinpoint him with dull eyes. It was Mrs. Linton.

He felt himself drawn to her, moth to flame.

“What now?” said Catherine, leaning back, and returning his look with a suddenly clouded brow: her humour was a mere vane for constantly varying caprices. “You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff! And you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be pitied! I shall not pity you, not I. You have killed me—and thriven on it, I think. How strong you are! How many years do you mean to live after I am gone?”

Face had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise, but she seized his hair, and kept him down.

“I wish I could hold you,” she continued, bitterly, “till we were both dead! I shouldn’t care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn’t you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, ‘That’s the grave of Catherine Earnshaw? I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I’ve loved many others since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them!’ Will you say so, Heathcliff?”

“Don’t torture me till I’m as mad as yourself,” cried he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth.

The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture. Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also. Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that on his letting go there were four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin.

“Are you possessed with a devil,” he pursued, savagely, “to talk in that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? You know you lie to say I have killed you: and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?”

“I shall not be at peace,” moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of physical weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which beat visibly and audibly under this excess of agitation. She said nothing further till the paroxysm was over; then she continued, more kindly — “I’m not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff. I only wish us never to be parted: and should a word of mine distress you hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own sake, forgive me! Come here and kneel down again! You never harmed me in your life. Nay, if you nurse anger, that will be worse to remember than my harsh words! Won’t you come here again? Do!”  
  
Hannibal had lost track of Face within a few steps of the parlor. It was only seconds after the light had been extinguished that he heard his young Lieutenant call his name from a distance far greater than should have been possible. It seemed to be coming from the right, but he knew Face hadn’t passed him. It had to be a trick of the acoustics of the old house. His brain told him to go to the right, his heart said left.

He could hear voices in the distance. How long was the hallway, he questioned himself. Perhaps there were turns. Perhaps it meandered throughout the second level of the house.

Then, out of the confusion of the dark he clearly heard conversation. He paused for a moment turning his head toward where he’d just come, nothing but a blind black cavern. Turning back without preamble there was an open door with light spilling into the passage.

Looking in the door he found a sickly and rumpled woman on a fainting settee. Illness permeated her features. Her long, brown hair tangled; her eyes sunken in darkened wells surrounded by furrowed brow and white paste cheekbones. Pregnant and weak, she still managed to grasp the man before her.

He spoke with Face’s voice, but it had to be another distortion of sound, for this man was dressed as Edgar Linton had been, but with less luster. Though he wore the same articles, these were of dark, Berkshire greens. His coat was of a fine wool, his stockings covered by boots to his knees.

He hadn’t turned for Hannibal to see his features but all logic told him no matter how much the man sounded like Face they hadn’t been separated long enough for this quick-change. The person speaking to Mrs. Linton couldn’t have been his young man.

“You teach me now how cruel you’ve been—cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they’ll blight you—they’ll damn you. You loved me—then what right had you to leave me? What right—answer me—for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you—oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?”

“Let me alone. Let me alone,” sobbed Catherine. “If I’ve done wrong, I’m dying for it. It is enough! You left me too: but I won’t upbraid you! I forgive you. Forgive me!”

“It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands,” he answered. “Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer—but yours! How can I?”

They were silent—their faces hid against each other, and washed by each other’s tears. The details of their figures became obscured. Their image was becoming blurred, losing all sharp lines. Hannibal took one step and found himself in the position of the servant Nelly, the room again clear and crisp.

An uncomfortable feeling grew in his gut along with the knowledge Mr. Linton would arrive soon. He’d been to Gimmerton chapel and would be home soon. How Hannibal knew this was beyond him, only knowing it to be true.

“Service is over,” he announced. “My master will be here in half an hour.”

Heathcliff groaned a curse, and strained Catherine closer: she never moved.

Ere long Hannibal perceived a group of the servants passing up the road towards the kitchen wing. Mr. Linton was not far behind; he opened the gate himself and sauntered slowly up, probably enjoying the lovely afternoon that breathed as soft as summer.

“Now he is here,” Hannibal exclaimed. “For heaven’s sake, hurry down! You’ll not meet any one on the front stairs. Do be quick; and stay among the trees till he is fairly in.”

“I must go, Cathy,” said Heathcliff, seeking to extricate himself from his companion’s arms. “But if I live, I’ll see you again before you are asleep. I won’t stray five yards from your window.”

“You must not go!” she answered, holding him as firmly as her strength allowed. “You shall not, I tell you.”

“For one hour,” he pleaded earnestly.

“Not for one minute,” she replied.

“I must—Linton will be up immediately,” persisted the alarmed intruder.

He would have risen, and unfixed her fingers by the act—she clung fast, gasping: there was mad resolution in her face.

“No!” she shrieked. “Oh, don’t, don’t go. It is the last time! Edgar will not hurt us. Heathcliff, I shall die! I shall die!”

“Damn the fool! There he is,” cried Heathcliff, sinking back into his seat. “Hush, my darling! Hush, hush, Catherine! I’ll stay. If he shot me so, I’d expire with a blessing on my lips.”

And there they were fast again. Hannibal heard his master mounting the stairs—a cold sweat ran from his forehead: he was horrified.

“Are you going to listen to her ravings?” he said, passionately. “She does not know what she says. Will you ruin her, because she has not wit to help herself? Get up! You could be free instantly. That is the most diabolical deed that ever you did. We are all done for—master, mistress, and servant.”

Hannibal wrung his hands, and cried out; and Mr. Linton hastened his step at the noise. In the midst of his agitation, the servant Hannibal was sincerely glad to observe that Catherine’s arms had fallen relaxed, and her head hung down.

“She’s fainted, or dead,” he thought: “so much the better. Far better that she should be dead, than lingering a burden and a misery-maker to all about her.”

Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest, blanched with astonishment and rage. What he meant to do I one could not tell; however, the other stopped all demonstrations, at once, by placing the lifeless-looking form in his arms.

“Look there!” he said. “Unless you be a fiend, help her first—then you shall speak to me!”

Face left the room with Hannibal following close behind. Before dimming light in the passageway faded to nothing, he grasped Face by the sleeve, flummoxed to find there the leather of Face’s jacket and not the wool of Heathcliff’s garb.

“Go Face! Go!

Rushing down the hall something struck Hannibal. Catherine hadn’t been pregnant when he had first seen her.

Ahead was the parlor. Light crept from under the closed door presenting a fan across the wooden floor. Face slowed at their approach. Hannibal considered going in to look for a clue as to their whereabouts but pulled up short when he heard the Lintons, whom they had just left, within grousing at each other. Instead of entering he dislodged Hannibal’s grip taking his hand in his own. A dim light grew from the stairway leading to their way out.

Bursting through the door the two crashed into the Land Rover still parked by the stone mounting block, lights on, engine running, though now turned around. Scrambling to open doors and get inside, Hannibal was shouting, “Go BA!”

Bosco didn’t know where he was going to but made tracks leaving the site. Murdock’s alarm was clear as he looked on their Lieutenant, head back, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Hannibal twisted in his seat, “You okay, Face?”

“Yeah. I’m alright,” he said rather unconvincingly.

“What happened, Boss?” BA was asking.

“I...I can’t really tell you. It was... bizarre.” He suddenly turned in his seat again to look once more at Face. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Ask me again and I might have a full blown breakdown.”

Hannibal could only look at him with concern. Once again setting himself straight he said to BA, “l can’t explain it right now. We shouldn’t have gone in. Should of gotten the directions and left.” Then more to himself than the other passengers, “Shouldn’t have spent time in there.”

“You weren’t in there more than four or five minutes.” Murdock finally found his tongue.

BA glanced at Hannibal out of the corner of his eye. Their leader was chewing nervously on the edge of his thumb. When the pilot’s comment caught up to his consciousness he belatedly startled. “No! We were in there for forty-five minutes. Half an hour at the very least.”

Doing his best to remain calm Bosco slowed his speed as they entered a wooded section of single lane road. When he spoke it was low and even, “Boss. When the two of you went inside I turned the car around. We were pointed right at that mounting block thing so I figured I’d turn around while Murdock and I waited. We couldn’t have sat there more than a minute or two before you came back out.”

Hannibal stared through the windshield, resolutely mute. When BA checked Face in the rear view, the conman was staring at him, mouth open, eyes wide. Murdock, as expected, looked shaken. Bosco wanted to know what had transpired in those few minutes they were out of contact with their leader and second, but with how rattled everyone already was he wasn’t going to push it. Instead he concentrated on the dark road before them, what had essentially narrowed down to a path, the road they traveled took a sharp left with the view hinting at the end of the wooded area.

“Do you see him up there?!”

BA looked to Hannibal in response to the seemingly random outburst. “See who, Boss?”

“That guy up there!” It was Murdock, pointing forward, arm extended between the two front seats.

BA’s eyes went back to the road and yes, there was someone walking ahead. The figure took shape in the dim light before them. The road itself made a switchback and the silhouette was lost in the turn.

Taking the turn themselves, the figure was gone, but they were headed back into the open. BA could faintly see the road once again opening to a double width beyond the start of another stone wall rising to their left.

“Stone walls are everywhere,” the big guy mumbled to himself.

The wall had risen in height to nearly nine feet, holding back what was left of the wood. With one more curve the wall abruptly dropped to two or three feet, its upper reaches exchanging stone for iron fencing. Driving alongside, the road keeping them within inches of the stone and rails, BA noted a cemetery nestled within, beyond the boundaries. And there, up ahead, stood the figure. He no longer was in the roadway, instead he stood inside the perimeter.

Stopping beside, the man was nearly close enough to touch should BA have the inclination. With his window down Bosco took in a breath to ask for directions to the abbey when it came distinctly to the four the man was speaking.

It wasn’t a quiet prayer for a lost loved one. It was an angry, vociferous accusation directed to a fresh grave marked with a simple footstone.

“Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”

Hannibal focused on the man’s garb first. Dark from head to toe, only a white frill, mostly obscured by a dark woolen cape encouraging the monotony.

From the backseat Murdock asked, “What’s he wearing?” before startling when the man’s features came into view. “Jeezus! He looks just like Face!”

All three whipped their heads around to their LT who had pushed himself tightly against his door, shrinking from the sight of himself.

“Get us out of here BA!” Hannibal shouted.

Murdock watched, twisting in his seat, as the man paid no heed to the vehicle spraying dirt and sod in its wake in the dash to put distance between itself and the kirkyard. Unwinding himself he barked, “What the fuck?” to no one in particular and all the rest nonetheless. He looked to Face and took his hand when even in the darkened cab of the Land Rover, with only the dash lights for illumination, he could see Face was pale and frozen in place.

Face wasn’t baffled, he wasn’t confused. He was horrified to see himself cursing a dead woman with such fury. He held tight to Murdock’s hand and had to force himself to recognize both Murdock and Hannibal were saying his name, not coming fully back to himself until Hannibal’s sharp, “Lieutenant!”

His answered with, “Pull over, BA.” When their driver didn’t respond by slamming on the breaks he shouted, “Pull over now!” and grasped at the door handle.

They hadn’t come to a complete stop before Face was out the door, hands on knees, vomiting onto the road. Lightheaded from wrenching, the palm placed mid-back was a welcome steadying influence. He could hear the pilot behind him saying, “Here, Hannibal.”

When he stood he felt a swoon coming on. Again Hannibal was there with a steadying hand, this time holding firm to his bicep. “Here Face. Rinse your mouth?” A bottle of water was held before him that he accepted gratefully.

“Thank you, Boss.”

“You okay?”

An arm worked around his shoulders pulling him in. Leaning with the motion he didn’t fight being nestled into the side of Hannibal’s chest.

“What’s happening here, John?”

“I don’t know, Kid. I don’t know.” The arm snugged him in just that much more.

“Let’s go,” Face said around a slight tremble. It was enough for the boss to order Murdock to switch places with him.

Again on the move the Land Rover traversed the unpredictable terrain as well as any military vehicle. In the masterful hands of the mechanic it avoided any impediments that may have, in someone else’s hands, sent it off-road or into an oil pan ripping divot. BA had just guided it around the face of another crag when he and Murdock both announced, “Up there!” The driver lifted his head, pointing with his chin, the passenger with an extended finger at the end of an extended arm, each pointing to what they were now considering a ubiquitous local structure - another stone house.

  
Parking uphill from the building, BA announced this time he would knock on the door.

“I don’t want you alone,” Hannibal ordered as he opened his own door at the same time Murdock opened his.

Many things can be said about one Templeton Peck, but being a fool isn’t one of them. “I’m not staying here alone,” and was out the door and beside Murdock before anyone could argue.

Hannibal took the lead. “Stay tight.”

The four men picked their way carefully down the slope leading to the opening in the stone perimeter. Once inside BA hurried to the door. His knocking was interrupted by Murdock letting out a faint whistle into a hand cupped over his mouth; a signal leftover from their days on patrol in the desert meaning all halt.

He had glimpsed inside a window, clearly seeing a man sitting with a flintlock pistol in his lap. Face stepped up beside his friend and had to cover his mouth so not to let out a yelp. He recognized him. It was the same man who’d originally opened the door at their first stop.

Though the room was dark he was illuminated by the fire blazing before him. In his right hand he held an unmated dueling pistol. Close at hand to his left sat a tankard.

Murdock followed as Face sank to the ground beneath the window, soon to be followed by the other two men crouched around him. “It’s the same fucking house as before. Look. There are the two trees,” Face whispered. But that was the only thing said by any of them. Voices from within filtering through leaks between wavy glass and lead lattice.

“You, and I,” the male voice said, “have each a great debt to settle with the man out yonder! If we were neither of us cowards, we might combine to discharge it. Are you as soft as your brother? Are you willing to endure to the last, and not once attempt a repayment?”

“I’m weary of enduring now,” a woman replied; “and I’d be glad of a retaliation that wouldn’t recoil on myself; but treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.”

“Treachery and violence are a just return for treachery and violence!” cried the man, whom Face had encountered earlier in the night. “Mrs. Heathcliff, I’ll ask you to do nothing; but sit still and be dumb. Tell me now, can you? I’m sure you would have as much pleasure as I in witnessing the conclusion of the fiend’s existence; he’ll be your death unless you overreach him; and he’ll be my ruin. Damn the hellish villain! He knocks at the door as if he were master here already! Promise to hold your tongue, and before that clock strikes—it wants three minutes of one—you’re a free woman!”

“I’ll not hold my tongue!” the woman said; “you mustn’t touch him. Let the door remain shut, and be quiet!”

Neither Face nor Hannibal recognized the woman’s voice. She was a new player in this danse macabre. Of the man, Face had no doubt.

“No! I’ve formed my resolution, and by God I’ll execute it!” cried the desperate being. “I’ll do you a kindness in spite of yourself, and Hareton justice! And you needn’t trouble your head to screen me; Catherine is gone. Nobody alive would regret me, or be ashamed, though I cut my throat this minute—and it’s time to make an end!”

“You’d better seek shelter somewhere else to-night!” close to the lattice the woman exclaimed, in rather a triumphant tone. “Mr. Earnshaw has a mind to shoot you, if you persist in endeavouring to enter.”

That was enough for Hannibal. He reached for Face hoping there wouldn’t be a need to carry him. Face leaned forward, landing on hands and knees before skittering to his feet only, ready to run low. The four made their way back towards the breach in the stone perimeter. Instead of passing through they were brought up short by a voice from behind them. There, stood at the little bump out of the door, was a woman both Hannibal and Face had seen before.

She slapped and scratched at the oaken door. “Let me in—let me in!” she wailed. Receiving no answer she called to those inside, “Tis Catherine Linton. I’m come home: I’d lost my way on the moor! Let me in!”

The moon was making a valiant effort to part the clouds, but to no avail. If it hadn’t been for Catherine’s deathly white pallor none of the men would have noticed her attention had turned from the door and was now fully on them.

“It is twenty years,” she mourned: “twenty years. I’ve been a waif for twenty years!”

More like two hundred, Hannibal thought.

So involved in the display before them, Face had made several yards progress back in her direction before the rest were all over him, dragging him towards the opening in the fence. He struggled to a point of violence crying out to be let free. With one step left to cross out of the courtyard he made one final Herculean effort, one arm reaching for the specter he cried out, “Cathy!”

His lunge would have been successful had BA not wrest him around the waist, pulling him through the ingress where his struggles stopped as though a switch had been dropped down. All of his efforts ceased and he was in danger of fully meeting the ground. Hannibal moved fast, scooping him up and flinging him like a limp doll over his shoulder. Murdock beat him to the LandRover opening both the front and back passenger doors. Satisfied Hannibal had himself and Face fully inside, he swung the door shut. BA had engaged the keyless ignition as he ran around the back to climb in the driver’s, having almost jumped in Murdock’s lap, momentarily forgetting the vehicle’s right hand drive.

Hannibal was too busy soothing a nearly hysterical Face to shout any orders. The lack of direction felt wrong to Murdock who couldn’t help himself from saying in a soft voice, “Go, BA.”

To his credit, Bosco took it for what it was, a desperate attempt by the unstable pilot to bring a sliver of normalcy into the preposterous night. In just as low a tone he said, “I’m getting us out of here.”

Silence had settled in the interior. Face was upright, leaning heavily on Hannibal who in turn had an arm around his shoulders. Murdock was worryingly quiet which prompted BA to speak up. “We still have plenty of fuel. I’m going to drive until we reach the sea or a populated town. Any objections?” When there was no reply he pronounced a self satisfied, “Good.”

It wasn’t five minutes later the first glimpse of sunrise promised to relieve them of the harrowing darkness of the night. As the road and countryside slowly revealed themselves outside the perimeter of the headlights Face’s exhaustion overtook him. Safe under Hannibal’s protective wing he could no longer hold off sleep.

Through the dim light of rising of the sun, BA and Murdock were both looking at the post sign at the crossroads. “Look. Carfax Abbey,” the big guy announced, relief washing over the words.

After taking the right hand turn BA came to an abrupt halt. The jerk was enough to startle Face awake.

“BA?” Hannibal didn’t think he could take much more.

BA wasn’t listening. Both he and Murdock were questioning their lying eyes.

“It can’t be,” BA said low.

“You know it is,” Murdock accused.

Face lifted his head. “What...” When he saw it, he didn’t question it. The only thing he said further was, “The two trees.”

Hannibal didn’t want to believe it, but what else was there to do? Down the slope in the dim light of a night refusing to surrender stood the remains of a house. Only the foundation and bits of the first floor remained. The stone perimeter wall was mostly gone. All that remained in laudable condition were the two trees.

BA eased off the brake and they began to roll by the ruin. While the other three stared at the remains, Hannibal couldn’t bring himself to ponder it. Instead he looked up the flanking hill and immediately regretted it. There in the coming light, watching as they rolled past, stood Catherine Earnshaw-Linton.

  
  


With thanks to Emily Brontë

~~~

1818 - 1848

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🎃 Happy Halloween 🎃 

  
**This is in answer to a Halloween prompt, though admittedly it’s more of a riff on both the prompt and the original classic, Wuthering Heights.**

“The guys are traveling in England, perhaps just finishing a case or going to one. On the way they have to take shelter in an abandoned building. More formally known as Carfax Abby, while there what or who do they find.”

If you haven’t read Wuthering Heights and would like to, it can be found here - [Wuthering Heights](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/768/768-h/768-h.htm)  
  


  
  


**And below, I couldn’t resist having a bit of fun with the classic tale.**

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